One windy evening, Leo heard a sound that made his feet stop right where they were.
Thump. Thump-thump. It came from above the ceiling, from the little attic with the small square door.
Leo stood very still and whispered the words that helped: "I can be brave and shaky, both at once."
Dad came up the stairs with a flashlight. "That old attic makes noises when the wind blows," he said. "Want to see what it is?"
Leo pressed his lips together and gave a tiny nod. His legs felt wobbly on the ladder, one rung, then two.
"I can be brave and shaky, both at once," Leo whispered again.
At the top, the attic was dark and dusty and full of shadows shaped like nothing at all. Then — thump! Something moved in the corner. Leo grabbed the flashlight tight and pointed it.
A loose board. Just a loose board, tapping the wall each time the wind pushed through a gap in the roof. Thump. Thump-thump. That was all.
Leo let out a long breath. "It's only the wind," he said, and his voice came out steadier than before.
But when Leo stepped closer, his elbow bumped a shelf. A little box slid off and — clatter — spilled buttons all across the floorboards. Red ones, blue ones, one big brass one that rolled into the dark.
His cheeks went warm. For a moment Leo wanted to climb straight back down and say nothing at all.
Instead he took a breath. "I knocked over your buttons, Dad," Leo said. "I'll pick them up."
"Thank you for telling me," said Dad, and he knelt down to help.
So Leo chased the buttons across the dusty boards, one by one, right up to the loose board in the corner. And there, tucked underneath it, was the big brass button and something else — a small tin whistle, green with age.
"That was Grandma's," Dad said softly, turning it in the light. "I wondered where that went."
Leo held the whistle and gave it a gentle blow. A thin, sweet note floated out into the attic, and somehow the shadows didn't look scary anymore. They were only boxes and blankets and the shapes of forgotten things.
"I can be brave and shaky, both at once," Leo said one last time, and this time he nearly laughed, because now he was mostly just brave.
They pressed the loose board flat so the wind couldn't thump it, and carried the whistle and the box of buttons down the ladder.
In bed, Leo set the little green whistle on the nightstand where he could see it. Outside, the wind still pushed and hushed against the house, but the attic was quiet now.
Leo pulled the blanket up warm and closed his eyes. Somewhere above, a board that used to thump held perfectly still, and so, at last, did Leo.